Brendon Ayanbadejo reiterates apology for his critical remarks about Patriots

After making critical remarks Sunday night about the New England Patriots on social media, Ravens special-teams ace Brendon Ayanbadejo said he quickly realized it was something that coach John Harbaugh would want to discuss with him.

"I think the most important thing is we did a lot of good things this year, this organization stands for a lot of great things, and it's never about one person," Ayanabadejo said Thursday. "It's about the organization. So, it was just the best idea to apologize. The comments made Sunday were selfish and brought a lot of attention to myself even though that wasn't the purpose of it. Yeah, I expressed myself, but it ended up being a lot of attention on me. That's not what this organization is about, that's not what I'm about. I'm a team player. It just didn't go off the right way and I issued an apology."

As the Patriots were putting the finishing touches on their victory Sunday night over the Houston Texans in the AFC divisional round, Ayanbadejo took aim at the defending AFC champions.

"New England does some suspect stuff on offense," Ayanbadejo wrote on his Twitter account. "Can't really respect it. Comparable to a cheap shot b4 a fight. Are you watching the game pats vs texans? If so you see the hurry snap offense catch em b4 they set up. It's a gimmick.

"Their offense is good enough to be successful without that. … In a sport that is predicated on mano y mano, lets hurry up n snap it = [expletive]."

Ayanbadejo didn't stop with his critique of the Patriots' offense, also referencing the infamous Spygate episode as well as the team cutting wide receiver Tiquan Underwood the day before the Super Bowl last year.

Ayanbadejo then wrote the following apology: "I made selfish comments on twitter last night that reflected poorly upon myself, my teammates, and the organization. For that I apologize."

Ravens coach John Harbaugh declined to say much about Ayanbadejo's remarks, which triggered a lot of negative reaction in Baltimore and New England on Twitter, message boards and sports talk radio.

"That's all stuff that just really isn't relevant," he said. "That's all stuff that's not, I don't think, worthy of the conversation right now, at this time."

Following the stir created by Ayanbadejo, his teammates downplayed the effects of his remarks.

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